HP HDX18 "pop" and burnt smell

Hello everyone. New to this forum so thank you in advance for any help you can give me. Yesterday, I was working through emails on my HP HDX18. I always have it propped up to allow proper cooling. All I was doing was checking emails and all of a sudden a heard a "popping" noise. I thought I had dropped something so I didn't pay much attention to it until I started to smell a burning electronic type smell emanating from the headphone jack area. It got progressively worse so I turned off my laptop for the evening.
Today, I booted up my laptop with no problem and the smell came back with a vengeance and the side of the laptop where the headphone jack/finger print reader are located became scalding hot extremely quickly. I had to shut off my laptop because it got so hot on that side that I didn't want to cause more damage.
I don't have much experience opening up and working on laptops, but is this something I can mix myself to save some money? I need some help desperately as this is my only laptop and a work tool for me. I read a thread from "thesaltydog" on 11-10-10 that described the same exact problem but I didn't see any answers to his problem. Any help with this would be appreciated. My laptop is about 3 years old. Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

 

If your some what mechanically inclined take it somewhat apart and try to deduce the problem. Turn it on and try to track down where the noise/smell is exactly coming from with the bottom of the laptop exposed. It is really a strange situation. Oh and make sure the fan/s are still spinning if their not that could have been the reason your laptop was getting really hot. Hope this helps.

 

Thank you for responding EvolutionX. I really appreciate it. Ok. I took my HDX-18 apart and tried not to mess it up too much! lol...I pinpointed the burning smell coming from the headphone/usb port/jack on the side of the laptop. I disconnected the cable leading from the headphone/usb jack to the AverMedia mini board on top of the big motherboard. I rebooted the laptop and the burning smell was gone along with of course the ports for the headphones and usb. Now here's what I don't understand, I waited a while and re-connected the cable and booted it up again and there was no smell this time. Maybe I didn't have it on for long enough but we'll see but it definitely is coming from the headphone/usb jack/port on the laptop. Why would I hear a "pop" to begin with? I don't know what is going on? If anyone else had had a similar problem, please let me know. I will cross my fingers in the interim. I noticed another member of this board had a similar problem. He posted this back in November 10, 2010. His name is "thesaltydog". I don't know how to contact him or if he is even still on this forum. Here is what he said back then:

"Hey, gang... I have a potentially serious problem with my HDX18, and I need some advice; I had the laptop on my bed, elevated from the bed itself by a good two inches or more to allow for proper cooling. I had just set it up, and it had only been on for less than 5 minutes; I was not actively using it at the moment, when I heard a small "POP" noise. I thought I had dropped something on the floor, so I thought nothing of it. Shortly thereafter, I smelled the unmistakable fragrance of burnt electronic components... not good. I at first thought it was my battery, since it's not holding a full charge anymore, but that wasn't it. I powered down, and took off the bottom cover over the hard drives and memory, and did the old "sniff test" to locate the problem. What I found was a strong smell coming from the area of the 3 1/8" audio jacks, on the right-hand front side of the laptop. I just tried plugging in headphones to both of the jacks, and while I hear do hear audio, there's a garbled, whining sound very prominent in the background; this has never been there before.

So, what happened? Did I blow out something in the audio stage? If so, why would it still produce any audio at all?

One other point - the area immediately to the right of the fingerprint reader can get slightly warm; not exactly hot, but definitely noticeable - and this is where the burning smell comes from.


Any ideas on what's wrong, and what I can do to pinpoint it, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. I am pretty sure I still have coverage through an extended SquareTrade warranty, if need be."

 

Sorry I can't help specificaly about the pop and smell. I do own a HDX18 myself for two years now. No problems.
You can PM thesaltydog via his username if you click on that.

 

Hi,
Was there any smoke coming out of the unit? I would recommend contacting HP regarding this issue. If you need assistance doing so please email me your product and contact information to [email protected]. Please include Attn: Veronica-NBR in the subject line.

"The views expressed in my contributions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views and strategy of HP"